Oral Health Care Behaviors of Pre-school children parents who received dental treatment in Dan Kun Thot Hospital. Nakhon Ratchasima Province.

Abstract

This research was designed as a descriptive study. The purpose was to describe the oral health care behaviors of pre-school children parents. Sixty three parents of 3-6 years old children were obtained through a systematic random sampling. Data were gathered by semi-structured questionnaires during the period between December 2002 and January 2003. The results showed that the parents level of the knowledge, beliefs and attitudes towards oral health care behaviors in pre-school children were at the medium level and the percentages of those were 82.54%, 66.67% and 53.97% respectively. Pre-school children had the average number of decayed, missing and filling teeth of 6.73 teeth. Cleansing teeth and gum with a toothbrush were 88.89% and self teeth brushing was 80.36%. 61.91% of children had sweet candy and most of them (93.65%) did not brush their teeth after meal and 63.83% of those had fillings. Toothache (55.56%) was a major complaint to bring them for the dental treatments and most of them went to see the dentist at the public hospital as a convenient reason. 31.11% of oral health care information sources was bought to the parents by a dental health team and public health officers. For suggestion, as the knowledge, beliefs and attitudes of parents towards oral health care behaviors were medium, the parents should pay more practical behaviors with dental caries checking up, tooth brushing and avoid giving sweet candy for good oral health of their children.